The earthquake happened on Wednesday evening, August 15th. Holly and Katie, my fellow volunteers, were running an errand, and I was eating dinner reading the New York Times online about Machu Picchu. We've had earthquakes here before, just a couple really small ones that lasted 10 seconds. So when it started, I thought it would stop immediately. It didn't stop, and everything was shaking. I didn't know what to do, so I went to the doorway to the stairwell. Everyone in the building was leaving, so I followed them out. I stood next to the doorman (door kid) and watched our building sway, the chandeliers in some apartments shaking. The feeling of being in the building with the walls and floor swaying was creepy. Getting to the ground outside and feeling the ground continue to move was even creepier, not to mention my extreme sensitivity to motion sickness. After a little over 2 minutes, the shaking and trembling stopped. Holly and Katie returned, and all was fine. We felt a "replica" that night and the next day, but nothing serious.
The next day I was in the car with the nurse who is my boss. We were on our way to group therapy for HIV patients, our first session. She was on her cell phone asking her secretary to call all of our MDR TB patients in Ica, Chincha, Pisco and Cañete--the cities most affected by the earthquake. On our ride back after the therapy sessions, it was clear that the patients could not be contacted, so we were going to send people down. One of the community workers (promotora) was sitting next to me--we both looked at each other and immediately said--we want to go.
She didn't end up coming, but I went with a few of the nurses from Socios, a couple promotoras, and a couple high up figures along with tons of bags of food, used clothing, mattresses, and cots.
Our drive down took longer than normal because the Pan American has been split in a few places. We all gathered to look out the front window of the bus at the big cracks in the narrow highway. At a bridge right before driving through Pisco, cars were going one at a time across because it has been slightly cracked. The houses lining the highway had fires built in front of them for light since the power was out. We arrived in Ica late at night and stayed at the parents' house of a doctor who works with Socios. The next day we woke up early, split up into teams, and set off to evaluate the situations of our patients. We were in groups of 3. In one neighborhood people starting stopping at our bus wondering what goods we had inside. My boss decided it was safer for me to stay with the bus and stuff at the hospital, while she and the promotora went to find the patients. The damage wasn't that bad in Ica, yet still many people's houses of adobe bricks had crumbled. That night we went out to eat, but it was hard to find an open restaurant. Because of the earthquake, people have been left without water or electricity, and the one chicken place with service, raised their prices exponentially. One store selling bread had a line down the block. Another store with a telephone had a similar line.
The next day we woke up early, said our good-byes to the nice family (who had pecan and fruit trees in the yard!) and made our way to Pisco. We had to have a game plan for Pisco because it was so destroyed, it would be too dangerous to take the bus into central Pisco. In an area already poor and known to be risky to walk around in, when suddenly no one has anything (water, food, electricity,) if someone sees any sign of relief, of course they're going to loot. Our plan worked well. The 2 promotoras and I stayed in the bus, hidden behind trucks in a parking lot at a gas station ready to hand out goods to the patients sent to us by the nurses. Our adrenalin was rushing, as we waited and then jumped into action when a patient showed up in a taxi with a nurse of ours. The hospital of Pisco had been destroyed, but we found a doctor who came to our bus in her ambulance. We gave her boxes of medical supplies, which she gratefully received. Everyone had tears in their eyes. Her face showed how thankful she was.
Leaving Pisco was one of the hardest experiences. Because of the delay from the bridge and the cracks in the road, traffic was moving really slowly. The sides of the highway were lined with people of all ages begging food, water, or anything. Some held up open bags. Others held signs saying "we need help." We passed many large groups of people, until it thinned out and it was safe enough for us to throw out bags of food without the worry of starting a fight for the bag. I was sitting at the front of the bus, so I could take photos. I've heard about people walking through villages in Africa where kids are begging for food, but I had never seen faces in so much need as the faces of the people I saw.
We ended our whirlwind relief work weekend in the town of Chincha where I went to with some friends a few months before. We went to see the afro-peruvian culture that exists there, inca ruins, and happened across a beautiful beach. This time I ate the same typical food,
sopa seca y catapulcra, but saw a very different Chincha. The streets filled with tents where people were living. The walls around the hospital had fallen down, but the hospital itself was in pretty good shape. We camped out in the parking lot of the hospital handing out the food, clothes, and beds. It was dark when we finally had an empty bus and headed back to Lima. I arrived home hungry, tired, and feeling like I could hardly articulate what I had seen.
Stay tuned for part 2 when I went back a month later with some of the same nurses and people from PAHO and the Ministry of Health to show them the situation and work that needs to be done.
